Please find below the latest newsletter from Graham Watson, our Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament for South West England and Gibraltar:

As I write (Friday afternoon), Barroso has his new team of Commissioners together at a meeting in Bruges to discuss the new Commission’s economic strategy. They are due to agree it by 3 March. It will then be discussed in the Council of Ministers and in the European Parliament before the end of March. There is little I can report about it at this stage other than to say that the main discussion initially will be less about what to do than about who should do it and how, ie how much should be left to each member state and how much should be done collectively at EU level. The sub text reads ’can we trust the Greeks to sort out the mess they are in?’.

Any who doubt the UK’s influence on EU policy making may be interested to know that a Brit has just been appointed President of the European Judicial Co-operation Agency (Eurojust). Since another Brit heads the police co-operation agency (Europol) we are well placed to influence justice and home affairs policy.

Readers who follow my reports on bluefin tuna may be pleased to know that the European Commission has decided to recommend its definition as an endangered species, which will stop commercial fishing for tuna in EU or Atlantic waters from 2001.

I had meetings this week with Commission officials and the chairman of the Somerset Cider Brandy Company to review progress on his application for protected geographical origin status; and with representatives of the UK’s environment agency from the south west to discuss climate change, water management and waste policy. Much of my work in this parliament will be on climate issues: I have been invited to join a grandly titled ‘high level group’ to look at the challenges of climate change and how the European Commission should respond to it and have already been approached by the new Commissioner for climate change, who wants to see me. I also met two constituents from Broadstone in Dorset who had come to demonstrate the use of dogs in helping people with chronic diseases; one had a Labrador who alerts her when an attack of Addison’s disease is about to come on.

The most depressing event of Parliament’s week was when UKIP MEP Nigel Farage insulted the new President of the European Council in a debate on the floor of the House on Wednesday. What he said told us more about Nigel Farage and the party he leads than about Van Rompuy. I imagine his aim was to seek publicity; possibly he hopes to be suspended from Parliament, believing it will help his campaign for election to Westminster.

I hosted in Brussels this week a showing of a new film ‘World Vote Now’ which argues the case for a global referendum on whether people want a global democracy. Producer Joel Marsden has done a good job. Type the title into a search engine and you will find it or at least a trailer for it.

At Parliament’s foreign affairs committee there was an interesting presentation of new developments in co-operation across the Mediterranean. I am impressed with how seriously the EU is taking the proposal for high voltage solar thermal power production in the sun rich areas of northern Africa. Towards the end of the last parliament I published a pamphlet about the potential for renewable energy which outlined the opportunity for solar thermal power. There are a few copies left in my office if you would like to read it.

Tonight I talk to pupils at Millfield School about the importance of learning foreign languages. Tomorrow I’ll be delivering residents’ surveys in Bridport in support of our LibDem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Sue Farrant.

Regards

Graham